Combination display rack and storage cabinet



J. H. AMES ETAL Dec. 8, 1942.

COMBINATION DISPLAY RACK AND STORAGE CABINET Fiied Aug. 26. 1940 C G m T E E K G INVENTORS. JaH/v flan-s SA/WUEL 1171560.

ATTORNEYS.

Patented Dec. 8, 1942 COMBINATION DISPLAY RACK AND STORAGE CABINET John H. Amos and Samuel D. Heed, Cincinnati, Ohio, assignors to The Gibson Art Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, a corporation of Ohio Application August 26, 1940, Serial No. 354,239

7 Claims. (Cl. 312-118) Our invention relates to combination display racks and storage cabinets for the display, storage and merchandising control of greeting cards of different purposes, prices and sizes.

It has been the practice to display greeting cards in fixed racks in retail stores, which permits the prospective customer to look at all the cards on display and then select the card which it is desired to purchase. The customer usually takes the card which is purchased from the display rack, thereby reducing or exhausting the original supply of cards on display. The clerk in the store reinserts, as often as may be necessary, additional cards of identical purpose and price in those spaces from which purchased cards are removed.- In order to store these extra cards for refilling the display rack, it has been the practice to provide a separate cabinet or file of drawers disassociated from the display rack, to which the clerk must refer to secure additional cards to replace the ones purchased. This, of course, not only increases the store space required for card business far beyond that taken by display racks alone, but also involves considerable expense, equipment, time and labor to index this reserve stock for the continuous identification of each particular purpose and price carried in stock and displayed fortsale.

It is an object of .our invention to provide a combination display rack which displays the cards to the prospective customer and which incorporates a bin or compartment for the storage of reserve stock behind the display, .this compartment having a sliding door which gives ready access to a box or a stack of cards stored therein, and which thereby permits the clerk to quickly and easily withdraw any desired number of cards from this stock compartment whenever it is necessary to refill the display spaces on the rack in front of the sliding door from which purchasedv cards are removed.

It is a further object of our invention to provide a combination display rack and storage cabmet as described above, and which permits the clerk to reach into the compartment behind any individual display space on the rack and to remove from the stock compartment an additional supply of cards to be displayed in this particular space without disarranging the cards displayed in other spaces on the rack.

It is a further object of our invention to provide a simple and effective marker associated with each display space and storage compartment to indicate to the prospective customer and/or the clerk, the purpose and price "on each card displayed, the stock No. of the card, and also to serve as the means of identification necessary for the control of the display and storage of all the different purposes and prices of cards in the store.

It is a further object of our invention to provide a combination display rack and storage cabinet with markers as described above, whose novel design and construction, comprising a single unique fixture with minimum space requirements, permit an independent and separate control for the complete merchandising of each individual purpose and price of card in the store, including its display, its storage, and regulation of its stock quantity.

These and other objects-of our invention which will be set forth hereinafter or will be apparent to one skilled in the art upon reading these specifications, we accomplish by that certain construction and arrangement of parts of which We shall now describe an exemplary embodiment.

Reference is now made to the drawing which forms a part hereof and in which:

Fig. 1 is a front elevation of our novel display and storage cabinet.

Fig. 2 is a side elevation of our novel display and storage cabinet.

Fig. 3 is a cross section of our display and storage cabinet taken on the section line 3-3 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 4 is a substantially horizontal section of a bin of our display and storage cabinet taken on the section line 44 of Fig. 3.

Fig. 51s a perspective View of one of the doors of our novel cabinet.

Fig. 6 is a perspective view of one of the dividers used in forming compartments in the bin of our storage cabinet.

Briefly in the practice of our invention we provide a series of horizontal bins I, stacked upon each other in a stepped relation as is apparent in Fig. 3.

Projecting from the bottom of each bin I, is

a ledge 2, which terminates in an upwardly projecting lip 3.

Closing the front opening of each bin I, are a series of doors 4, which ride in tracks 5 of the ledge 2. Each door A, overlaps the adjacent door at its edge on one side and is overlapped by or underlaps the adjacent door on the other side.

As a specific instance, the door 4 in Fig. 5, overlaps the adjacent door to its left, by means of its edge 5, and underlaps the adjacent door to the right by means of its edge 6. This is true of all of the doors excepting the doors at the extreme right or left of a bin wherein the extreme door to the right has no door to the right of it to be underlapped, and the extreme door to the left has no door to its left to overlap.

By this construction it is apparent that any individual door may be moved to the right or to the left in the track 5 by sliding it under or over the adjacent doors. We preferably slide the door under the adjacent door since by this manner the portion of the bin behind the moved door is opened up without disarranging any other door excepting the one which is moved.

Upon the edge of each door is placed a vertically disposed handle I, which projects outwardly from the edge. This handle is on the edge of the door which overlaps the adjacent door and assists the operator in the sliding of the door and at the same time presents a surface on which a removable marker or tag 8 may be placed, carrying price marks, numbers and other convenientindicia.

In the bin I, and preferably behind the overlapping portion of the closed doors, we place the dividers 9, which divide the horizontal bins into separate'compartments, each approximately as wide as the door in front of it. The dividers 9 comprise an uptanding portion ID, of less height than the height of the bin, and of less depth than the depth of the bin, which is supported in an upright position by the flat base I i. Preferably these dividers are not fastened to the floor l2 of the bin, so they may be readily moved back and forth along the floor of the bin to vary the compartment sizes.

The track 5 in which the doors 4 slide, preferably contains a shoulder l3, against which the lower edge of the door '4 rests. The upper edge of the door 4 may rest against or in a groove l4, cut in the lip 3 of the ledge 2 above it. It may be desirable to out a groove in which the doors 4 may slide, but by providing merely a shoulder or ledge l3 the doors 4 may be readily removed from a display cabinet and doors of greater or less width substituted.

It will be understood that the doors ll may by having some of the doors and compartments,

ride in tracks at both top and bottom, edges,

if desired, Without departing from the spirit of our invention.

In using our novel display and storage cabinet, a box 20 or a stack l5 of greeting cards [6, is placed in a compartment ll of the bin I, behind a door 4, which is of greater width than the box of cards. The door is then put in place or slid into place and the desired number of greeting cards Hi from the box'2fi or the stack i5 is placed in a relatively upright position, easily viewed by a prospective customer on the ledge 2, and between the handle 1 of the door which it is in front of, and the handle 1 on the adjacent door, as is apparent from Fig. 1. The upwardly projecting lip 3, together with the two door handles 1, embrace the card l6 and prevent it from being displaced. The price of the card as well as its number, is placed upon the tab 3,. removably inserted in the handle 1 of the door d, which is directly behind the card.

In order to present an orderly display, the handle 1 is relatively thin in a vertical plane and the marker 8 is placed on the inside face of the handle 1, so as not to obstruct the vision, but so as to be readily available to both the customer and the clerk.

We preferably have formed the door 4, together with its handle 1, out of one piece of cards from the manufacturing resource. this stock control facility, together with the in display space and slides this door to the right This makes available under the adjacent door. the compartment l'l directly behind the moved door, but does not in any way disturb any of the other doors in the rack nor the cards in front of them. The clerk may now remove from the compartment II, a new supply of cards 16,

and after closing the door 4, place them on display in front of the door;

As will be apparent, the doors 4 may be removed from the rack, and doors of different widths inserted in order to accommodate greetings cards of different sizes. When a door is changed, the divider 9 in the binibehind it,

may be moved so as to accommodate the new size of card as is clearly apparent. As an exe ample, in Fig. 1 the intermediate four rows OOH-7 tain seven compartments with their seven doors,

while the top row contains only six compartments with its six doors, and the lowest row contains eight compartments with its eight doors. The top row is, of course, for greeting cards of a greater width than the greeting cards displayed in the lower rows, while the bottom 'row contains cards smaller than the rows above it. It is also apparent that it is possible to display cards of different widths in a single row in the row of different widths.

We do not intend to limit ourselves'to the direction in which the doors overlap. drawing and description we have shown the door to the right overlapping the edge of the door to the left. However, it is apparent that this overlapping may be reversed without departing from my invention. It is also apparent that the specific design and construction of my dividers is merely exemplary, as'is the specific configuration of the door handle I and the positioning of the marker 8, inasmuch as it might be desirable to form them of different configurations to present a pleasing appearance in combination with the cabinet, and it may be preferable to place the markers 8 on the face of the door 4, or on some other portion of either the doors or the handle.

It is to be understood that diiferent forms of our preferred form may be made without departing from the spirit of our invention.

From the above it isalso apparent that when either a box 2i] or a stack l5 of greeting cards l6 is placed in the compartment ll'of the bin I, a stock ticket or any similar device may be inserted at any desired position in either the box 20 or stock l5 to indicate the order point or reserve stock quantity which determines the necessity for re-orderinga' new supply of greeting It is tegral display and storage arrangement of our invention, which provides the control for the.

complete merchandising of each individual purpose and price of card in the store.

In the I Iaving thus described our invention what we claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is:

1. A greeting card display and storage cabinet comprising at least one horizontally disposed storage bin having a plurality of horizontally slidable doors, one edg only of each door overlapping, or overlapped by the adjacent door to permit the sliding of a door over or under the adjacent door to expose the interior of the bin behind said moved door.

2. A greeting card display and storage cabinet comprising at least one horizontally disposed storage bin having a plurality of horizontally slidable doors, one edge only of each door overlapping, or overlapped by the adjacent door to permit the sliding of a door over or under the adjacent door to expose the interior of the bin behind said moved door, and a divider in said bin behind the overlapping edges of adjacent doors.

3. A greeting card display and storage cabinet comprising at least one horizontally disposed storage bin having a plurality of horizontally slidable doors, one edge only of each door overlapping, or

overlapped by the adjacent door to permit the sliding of a door over or under the adjacent door to expose the interior of the bin behind said moved door, and a divider in said bin behind the overlapping edges of adjacent doors, said divider being movable.

4. A greeting card display and storage cabinet comprising at least one horizontally disposed storage bin having a plurality of horizontally slidable doors, one edge only of each door overlapping, or overlapped by the adjacent door to permit the sliding of a door over or under the adjacent door to expose the interior of the bin behind said moved door, each of said doors having a forwardly projecting handle at said overlapping edge.

5. A greeting card display and storage cabinet comprising at least one horizontally disposed storage bin having a plurality of horizontally slidable doors, one edge only of each door overlapping, or overlapped by the adjacent door to permit the sliding of a door over or under the adjacent door to expose the interior of the bin behind said moved door, and a divider in said bin behind the overlapping edges of adjacent doors, each of said doors having a forwardly projecting handle at said overlapping edge.

6. A greeting card display and storage cabinet comprising a plurality of horizontalstorag bins positioned one upon another, dividers Withinsaid bins dividing them into separate compartments, a ledge projecting from the bottom of each bin, a plurality of doors horizontally slidable in tracks in said ledge, one edge only of each door overlapping or overlapped by an edge of the adjacent door to permit the sliding of a door over or under the adjacent door to expose the. interior of the bin behind said moved door, said ledges terminating in an upwardly projecting lip and forwardly projecting handles on said doors to assist in sliding the same and to act as card holders in combination with said lip.

7. A greeting card display and storage cabinet comprising a plurality of horizontal storage bins positioned one upon another, dividers within said bins dividing them into separate compartments, a ledge. projecting from the bottom of each bin, a plurality of doors horizontally slidable in tracks in said ledge, one edge only of each door overlapping or overlapped by an edge of the adjacent door to permit the Sliding of a door over or under the adjacent door to expose the interior of the bin behind said moved door, said ledges terminating in an upwardly projecting lip and forwardly projecting handles on said doors to assist in sliding the same and to act as card holders in combination with said lip, the doors of one line of compartments being in a stepped relation to the doors of the other lines of compartments.

JOHN H. AMES. SAMUEL D. HEED. 

